The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Labor Series LESTER TRACHTMAN Interviewed by: James Leader Initial interview date: October 19, 1995 Copyright 2018 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Childhood and Education Born 1934 Parents were Russian immigrants BA in engineering from Columbia University 1956 MA in international labor from Cornell University 1958 Management Intern at the Office of International Labor Affairs 1959 African Labor Specialist at the Office of International Labor Affairs 1960-1965 Marketer for the African-American Labor Center 1965-1981 Labor and Family Health Conference in The Gambia Labor and Family Health Conference in Kenya Occupational Health and Safety for Agricultural Workers in Ethiopia Mine Workers Conference in Zambia Women’s Trade Union Conference in Togo Women’s Trade Union Conference in Kenya INTERVIEW [Note: This interview was not edited by Mr. Trachtman.] Q: for the Department of State’s oral history of labor diplomacy. And I had the pleasure of working with Les early on. We both were at the Labor Department early on in our careers, and it’s a pleasure to have this tape of his memories of his work in labor diplomacy. And, Les, why don’t you first just give a few words on your name and your date of birth? I do need to mention to you that we’ve given you a waiver so that I’ll give the rights of your statements to the oral history program so scholars can draw on it, publish perhaps parts of it, and I’ll get that to you. We won’t publish it before you get a chance to look at it, but why don’t you just give a little bit on your background and how 1 you got interested in labor, particularly international labor. TRACHTMAN: Well, first, Jim I want to say that I really appreciate your taking the time to do this with me today. I’m certainly very happy to talk about my background, but I also feel it’s an honor that one feels that what I have to say has some historical significance. It’s also therapeutic as one becomes older and watches the gray hair multiply in the mirror that you start wondering what you’ve accomplished over a lifetime, and talking it through gives a little bit of perspective to look back on it with a clear conscience. Well, let’s see, how do we start? I was born April the 11th, 1934. Where did my interest in labor arise? My parents came over as Russian immigrants when they were both quite young. My father came around age five, my mother around age one, and they both had a very liberal orientation, probably more of a socialist orientation. And I certainly picked that up in the house, question of liberal values and always very strongly Democrat: the Democrats were the good guys and the Republicans were the bad guys type of thing. And I remember even when Henry Wallace was running that they strongly supported his candidacy. But I think it’s more a question of basic values. My basic values were always with the common man, with the working man, and with the labor movement. Perhaps as I grew older I became disillusioned with some of the things that the trade unions were identified with, but at the core I certainly felt that trade unions were a very positive influence on the development of the American society. I’ll get into that more as we go along. Q: What was your first job in labor affairs, or particularly in international labor affairs? TRACHTMAN: Well, I guess the background to that is that it was a trade union that sent me through college. I got my engineering degree at Columbia through the munificence of Local Three of the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to which I was indebted. And then, after finding out that I really wasn’t cut out to be an engineer, I went on to Cornell School of Industrial Labor Relations. And it was the Cornell ILR school that introduced me to trade unionism, and always having had an interest in international labor affairs, when it came time to choose a major in the master’s program I decided I would make my major in international labor. Looking around for an appropriate place to focus my energies, the countries of Africa were just becoming independent. Ghana was the first, particularly in English-speaking Africa, so it was very logical to see how the labor movement of Ghana had evolved. So I wrote my thesis with the title of “The Labor Movement in Ghana: A Study in Political Unionism”--something of that sort. And soon thereafter, I met Jim Taylor of the Department of Labor, and he advised me to come to the Department of Labor as an intern, to OILA. Q: How did you meet him? TRACHTMAN: I think I was doing research on my thesis. I came down and went to the Library of Congress. At that time I met Dan Izeczek, because he was the African specialist for Steinbach. 2 Q: That was the Office of International Trade Unions, is that right? TRACHTMAN: Right, and OILA would be International Labor Affairs. Steinbach and Semple, right? Yes. And somebody must have introduced me to Jim around that time, and I got the offer to come to the Department of Labor, in OILA, or maybe it was OILB at that time, as an intern. And that was the beginning of my professional involvement with labor affairs. Q: You took what was then the management -- TRACHTMAN: Management Intern Program. Q: You didn’t take an exam, right? TRACHTMAN: I don’t remember any. Q: All right. TRACHTMAN: And then I became an African labor specialist. I was always the number two man in the system back then, labor specialist. I think my first boss for the first few months was Don Avery, then Bill Steen, then John Condon. And I worked in that position from ‘60 to ‘65. And the corresponding person at the Department of State we dealt with was Oliver Peterson. He was the husband of Esther Peterson, who was the consumer affairs advisor to Lyndon Johnson and who ran the Women’s Bureau for the Department of Labor later on. She still is around, a remarkable woman, great insight and personality. So I could really go back to those days in the Department of Labor, what distinguished them and why I felt that ILAB had a contribution to make and was important and still is important and should be strengthened rather than weakened as part of the American government’s outlook on international affairs. My feeling is that trade unions are an integral part of the society and the politics of every country, and if we want to encourage democratic institutions to develop in Third World countries, we should be encouraging the development of trade union movements, and there are a number of specific things we can do. And I think it was that conviction which motivated a lot of us in the international labor office. Q: What country did you spend the most time on at that time and why and what were the circumstances? TRACHTMAN: I wrote a thesis on labor in Ghana. My French was weak. Though I had studied French both in school and at the Foreign Service Institute, I probably had a preference for the English-speaking countries, and Kenya was becoming important. I would say Ghana and Kenya probably received a lot of attention. Though for that matter - - there were only two of us covering African affairs -- we really covered the continent quite well, kept the assistant secretary informed of labor events throughout Africa, from South Africa throughout North Africa. 3 Q: Kenya has often been noted as a country that, in a sense, vindicated an investment by the United States in international labor affairs. Why do you think that’s true and how did you respond to what was happening in Kenya? TRACHTMAN: Well, first thing that comes to mind is Tom Mboya, who was originally a trade union leader with support from institutions beyond Kenya. He became a political figure, with a very strong democratic orientation. First, one would say that people like Mboya who had the opportunity to become national leaders were helped by the KFL, the Kenya Federation of Labor, in various projects. The first one that comes to mind is the tailoring school in Nairobi. By the time I joined the African-American Labor Center in ‘65, the tailoring school was already going strong. My recollection it was the work of Veda Springer. It was the work of Veda Springer and the Garment Workers’ Union, I’m thinking of Ross out of Philadelphia, that helped the Philadelphia joint corps contribute money to the establishment of that school to show what trade unions can do specifically: give your members vocational training; help them become skilled so they can earn more money in an area where there weren’t enough skilled tailors; so that trade union school was always going very strong and was always identified as the creature of the Kenya Federation of Labor and then COTU, the Central Organization of Trade Unions. That’s what I can say about Kenya labor. They were strong in a number of areas. Municipal workers were strong. Railway workers were strong. The dock workers were very strong; that was the origin of ___________________ they came out of Mombasa to head COTU and then to head OATU, the Organization of African Trade Unity, or the Pan-African Trade Union Movement.